


Use Once and Destroy

by warriorpoet



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Casual Sex, Depression, Drug Use, F/M, Homophobic Slurs, M/M, PTSD, Past Rape, Past Torture, Post-Felina, Self-Loathing, Sexual Violence, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 16:18:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1161879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warriorpoet/pseuds/warriorpoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jesse wants drugs. He wants death. He wants someone to come along and make it all okay. He doesn't deserve the last one, and he knows there's no coming back from the first two. Fourth on his wish list is sex, and a lot of it. So he settles for that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Use Once and Destroy

**Author's Note:**

> This started out ages ago as an attempt to fill [this prompt](http://brbakinkmeme.livejournal.com/521.html?thread=628233#t628233) from the BrBa Kink Meme, which asked for _[Jesse] having a lot of one night stands that indirectly relate to something horrible that's happened to him, as a way for him to be in control over the situation and start to heal_.
> 
> When I recently went back to it to have a go at finishing it, it veered away (possibly way, WAY away) from any kind of healing, and what's here now is the same kind of premise, but as 7k words of Jesse Pinkman: Angst Puppet darkfic. So, credit to the anon prompter for the idea, and apologies to them that I couldn't execute it with a bit more hope.

Somewhere in Kansas, Jesse picks up a girl at a bar.

He's been on the road for two nights, maybe it's three if you count the night it all ended, and he decides he wants a girl. Any girl. Just to prove to himself that he's still able to choose to put his dick in something after so many months of having dicks put in him and having no say in it at all.

She's the kind of girl who thinks his scars make him look dangerous, not like some rat bitch freak who's _so pretty so pretty you ain't pretty anymore you rat bitch faggot_ and he tries to act it. Yeah, he's killed some people and yeah, he used to ride a motorcycle and yeah, he knows how to fuck you and roll right on out of town without ever thinking about you again.

She says her name is Crystal, and he doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, but guesses it means she's perfect for him. He doesn't tell her his name, not even a made up one. She has white-blonde hair that's dark at the roots, a lucky horseshoe tattooed above her left tit, and she blows him in the front of Todd's El Camino. When he asks to fuck her she asks for twenty bucks and climbs into his lap.

He doesn't like that, the way she's bouncing up and down on his dick, pushing her tits in his face, like he's not allowed to move. He picks up her skinny ass and throws her onto the seat, awkwardly moves around until he's got enough leverage to do the work himself. He pounds into her and she fake comes way too loud and he finally gets off and when she's gone he doesn't feel any better.

*

He doesn’t know where to go. He doesn't care. 

Not Alaska. Alaska was a fucking stupid idea that belonged to someone else that wasn't him anymore. Some dumb asshole who believed men who said they didn't poison little boys. Some dumb asshole who thought there was such a thing as getting away clean and making fresh starts, that somewhere out there in the wilderness was a nice girl with soft hair and pretty eyes who was maybe a little freaky but not as fucked up as him and who would meet him and love him and have a bunch of babies with him and never have to know that he shot an innocent man in the face once, and then they'd get a dog and a house with a nice little garden and maybe he'd learn ice fishing or how to cut down trees or whatever the fuck they did in Alaska.

He wants to find a cage and lock himself up, because freedom is suddenly scaring the shit out of him. At least back at the compound he knew how a day went, he knew his place and knew what to do and knew how to try to deal with it, knew he had to keep going because, no matter how fucking awful it was, one wrong move and they kill Brock. It was simple. His life had a purpose, then.

The El Camino craps out somewhere in South Dakota. Fucking Todd always talking about how him and Kenny rebuilt that car as a project when they were both on parole. He was so proud of it. He talked about car parts and body parts in the same way. He was good at abusing both of them, apparently, 'cause it just up and fucking dies at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere. Jesse picks up the bag of money that fucking Todd had left on the floorboard because somehow Jesse got lucky and Walt decided to come riding in on his big fucking gun on a Tuesday and fucking Todd had been too busy jacking off his psychoboner over Lydia between the pickup and Jesse snapping his neck to get the cash to wherever he kept it. 

He picks up his bag of money, and the bag of clothes and other shit he'd bought with it so far, and hitches to Sioux Falls.

It'll do.

*

He wants drugs. He wants death. He wants someone to come along and make it all okay. He doesn't deserve the last one, and he knows there's no coming back from the first two. 

Fourth on his wish list is sex, and a lot of it. So he settles for that.

It'll do.

*

Turns out the Crystal Palace might as well be a nationwide chain, like the Holiday Inn or something. They're fucking everywhere. Different names, all the same.

There's a hooker he falls a little bit in love with the minute he sees her across the sea of used rubbers in the parking lot. She's tall and pale and has full red lips and long black hair with bangs almost down to her eyes.

A lot of chicks have that look, he tells himself. It doesn't mean shit.

He explains what he wants to do, and she scratches the inside of her elbow and sighs. This chick looks way younger up close than he first thought she was. She can't be any more than twenty.

"It'll be two hundred for the weird shit."

"Okay."

"And I get to tell one of my friends where I'm going, okay? And if she doesn't see me by tomorrow, she'll go to the cops."

"Nothing bad's gonna happen," Jesse says, trying to smile, trying to be reassuring, knowing that he probably looks like death itself trying to seduce her. "You're safe with me. I promise."

"Yeah," she says dryly. "Sure."

She takes the money up front and takes off her clothes. Jesse is gentle with her, kisses her deep, strokes her hair and fucks her slowly and carefully and she actually looks like she's enjoying herself. 

He puts his hands around her throat, presses his thumbs into her windpipe. She makes gasping, wheezing, wet choking sounds, tries to cough and can't. Her lips start to go blue, her eyes roll back in her head. Jesse's still inside her and he lets go of her, exhales into her mouth until she's coughing and gulping air.

"See? See, baby? You're okay. It's okay. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

He closes his eyes and she's just a warm, breathing body in his arms. He puts his hands over her beating heart and murmurs into her neck. 

"I love you, I love you, I'm sorry, I should have known."

His dick goes soft; he just holds her and cries into her chest. "Jane, Jane, baby, I'm sorry."

The girl awkwardly pets his back while he sobs.

"Do you want me to get you hard again?" she asks.

"No. Just... can you just stay a while? Just... fall asleep with me? Let me wake up with you?"

"Gimme another hundred."

He pays the money and gives her a yellow t-shirt of his to wear.

Jesse wakes up with long legs tangled around him, his face buried in soft dark hair and sunny yellow cotton and the quiet sound of breathing, and for, like, half a second, he can pretend he's not a piece of shit _smackhead worthless junkie coward rat BITCH hit him hit him yeah Toddy show him he's a little bitch –_

He gets up and counts out an additional three hundred for her. DBAA fee. She gives him back his shirt and puts her clothes on. There are bruises blooming on her neck.

"What's your name, anyway?" he asks.

She snatches the bills out of his hand and counts through them. "You paid me enough, so I guess it's Jane now." 

"Try not to shoot it up all at once," he says. "Please."

"Go fuck yourself," she says, and slams the door behind her.

*

Jesse pays for all the black market paperwork that makes him someone else, and settles down a little ways out of Sioux Falls. He gets a job painting houses, a one-bedroom apartment, a used Ford Focus. His name is Gregory John Miller, and he's a law-abiding, productive member of society.

He drives hours to Minneapolis some weekends and hangs out in gay bars, always finding someone to spend at least part of the night with before driving home. He shaves his beard and keeps his hair grown out, wears tight jeans that feel weird and uncomfortable as fuck, but that's something Jesse Pinkman would think, so he tries to ignore how weird he feels. He's thankful for low light and the way the scars on his face have started to fade a little and that he's getting better at faking a smile and giving his best fuck-me eyes. It means there's always some dude who's willing to take him home.

Sometimes guys get too eager when he blows them. They hold his head and fuck his mouth until he gags, but he fights back, digging his fingers in to their inner thighs, scraping with his teeth, grabbing their balls, hard, until they back the fuck off. They back the fuck off, and they don't get two other guys to hold him down and shove their cock down his throat until he can't breathe and then they start punching him in the guts too – no. No more of that. A couple of times he lets a dude fuck him in the ass, and they do it without hitting him, without cuffing him, without spreading him out on the pool table and letting everybody get a turn with the _pretty little bitch rat bitch faggot bitch take it take it_ and he gets to go home of his own free will and he doesn't pass out from the pain and wake up a few restless hours later with blood and come all over him.

One Saturday night there's a big, burly dude giving him the look from the other end of the bar. The dude sends Jesse a drink, comes over and introduces himself. His says his name's Bob, and that's probably bullshit, but Gregory John Miller can't really call him out on it. 

"I want you to do me rough," Jesse slurs after five rounds. "Tie me up."

"You like that?" Bob asks, an eager light in his eyes.

"Yeah. I like that."

Bob has soft, thick rope and a black metal bed frame. He ties the knots tight, but keeps making sure Jesse can still feel his hands, can make a fist. 

"It's fine," Jesse says through gritted teeth. "Hit me."

He gets an open palmed slap to the face with Bob's heavy hand.

"Yeah," Jesse gasps. "Come on. Harder."

Bob twists Jesse's nipples, hits his chest, his stomach, open palm and then closed fist. He pushes Jesse's legs up until his knees are around his ears and smacks his ass, spreads him open with thick fingers.

"That's it," Jesse groans. "Call me names. Come on."

"Slut," Bob says as he eases his cock inside Jesse. "Hot fucking whore."

Bob's full weight is on top of Jesse and Jesse's arms feel like they're going dead. He tries to move them, and even though he knows he's tied up, the binds make him panic. His heart slams against his ribs, it makes him shake.

Tears sting in his eyes. He turns his head to the side.

"What am I? Am I a little bitch?" he chokes out.

"Yeah." Bob's breathless and sweaty and his tongue is in Jesse's ear and Jesse's skin is crawling. "Little bitch. Take it. You like it. Say you like my cock."

"I like it," Jesse sobs. "I'm a rat bitch and I like a dick in my ass."

He hears laughing, hooting, big hands slapping down on the pool table, the inked swastikas close to his face. He feels his skin blister and burn, Jack flicking his cigarette butts onto his chest. There are gentle hands on his face, Todd holding his head steady so he doesn't keep banging his head back on the table, _you can't cook with a concussion, Jesse, be careful, stop trying to hurt yourself_. 

There's screaming. Screaming and screaming and nobody is making it stop. 

His throat is raw and suddenly there's nothing holding him down and his arms are free and he curls up into the fetal position.

"Greg? Greg? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, I thought you were into it – Jesus, Greg, talk to me, are you okay?"

"N-no, man, it's... it's not you, okay, it's not you." He gets up on weak legs, dresses with Bob trying to reach out to him, horrified. 

Jesse shrugs him off. "Sorry, man, I – I'm just gonna go, okay? I'm sorry."

"Do you want me to call you a cab?" Bob's asking, but Jesse's running out the door, running down four flights of stairs, running two miles back to the bar where his car's still parked. 

He's probably still too drunk to drive, he's definitely too shaky and drained and just fucking out of it to drive. He crawls onto the back seat and wraps his arms around his knees and cries until he gets control over his body enough to drive back down to Gregory John Miller's clean little law-abiding apartment.

*

He meets this lady on a job he's working. She's getting her house re-done before trying to sell it. Just got divorced, vulnerable as hell. She's really good-looking in a kind of tired and nobody has told her she's good-looking in years sort of way. She looks like she could be Mrs. White and Mrs. Schrader's long-lost third sister, maybe, if Jesse could clearly remember what Mrs. White or Mrs. Schrader looked like, exactly. But she's got dark hair and blue eyes and a killer rack, and she really takes a shine to Jesse once he turns on the charm.

She makes him remember what he loved about MILFs back in the day. The ones he got with, at least, they were always so worked up and not getting any at home and so eager to take out all their frustrations on his lucky dick. And they knew how to work it, knew what they wanted and how to tell him. This one, her name's Linda, is no different.

Her bedroom furniture's all covered in drop cloths, they finished the job yesterday but the whole house still stinks with the fumes. Linda blows him, all spit and tongue, and he breathes in deep and feels like he's fifteen again, huffing paint under the Wynne bleachers, always asking Mrs. Martinez show him where, exactly, in the textbook the part about the Civil War was that they were supposed to be reading, so she'd bend down and show him and give him an eyeful of titties and he'd think about his stupid teenage boner and huffing paint again at lunch time and never learn shit and have to grow up to become a world-class meth cook/professional whipping boy/ _junkie imbecile coward rat bitch faggot_.

Linda has a pair of handcuffs, fluffy pink things that Jesse's pretty sure he could break out of unassisted if he had to, and when she holds them up and pouts her lips out raises her eyebrows, he grins with enthusiasm he doesn't feel.

"Fuckin' A," he says. "You're one of them kinky gals, huh?"

"Oooh, you have a dirty mouth, Gregory," she coos, leaning over him to pull down the drop cloth and cuff his wrists together behind a post of the headboard. He stretches his neck, tongues at the juicy tits hanging in his face. "I might have to do something about that."

She goes to the closet, gets a necktie, one of her ex-husband's, he guesses. Jesse sees where she's going with this and rattles the thin chain of the cuffs and tries to swallow.

"Nah, c'mon. You don't wanna do that. Don't you want me to eat your pussy?"

"Mmm. Dirty mouth for such a pretty boy."

The tie goes across his dirty pretty _bitch rat_ mouth, presses his tongue down, knots at the back of his head. He breathes quick through his nose and he's _not_ seeing Todd walking up to Andrea's door, he's _not_ seeing the silenced flash of the gun and her tumbling down the porch steps with her brains in her hair, he's _not_ screaming behind that dirty cloth, screaming NO NO NO like the word has no meaning, beating his head against the glass and kicking, thrashing, opening his cuts up again, making new ones, he's _not_ thinking about how he ruined everyone he ever loved and that Jack's completely right when he says _this is on you_.

He forces himself to keep his eyes open, forces himself to focus on Linda riding his dick, look at that, how hot that is, look at the way her tits bounce, feel how wet her pussy is, listen to the way she's moaning like she hasn't got fucked so good in years, stay hard, you have to stay hard, yeah, this is hot, don't break the cuffs, don't push her off, don't run away, she'll be pissed, she'll complain to your boss that you came on to her, assaulted her or something, you'll lose your job, you'll have to start over again all over again. Yeah. This is hot. MILFs MILFs MILFs.

He's silent under the gag, detaches his brain, lets it wander away to think of things to get him off quick. The locks on his spank bank are broken, the contents raided and torn up and dirtied. Not Andrea, not Jane, not any of those faceless girls who fucked him for meth, not the strippers him and Combo and Skinny Pete used to get wasted with, not that one time he jacked off thinking about Mrs. White and felt guilty for weeks after in case Mr. White could read his mind, not that poor hooker he choked, not any of those guys in Minneapolis he fought off when they got too rough, not Mrs. Martinez and her history book cleavage.

It takes forever for him to come, but Linda doesn't seem to mind, bouncing, grinding, rubbing herself off. She comes twice, and it's the second one that sets him off, a purely physical thing that he barely feels at all, just some weak shuddering of his insides happening very far away. 

She undoes the gag and kisses his slack mouth, says, "What was that about eating pussy?" and he croaks a lame excuse, something about somewhere he forgot he has to be, could she please undo the cuffs now? And he dresses with rubbery limbs, kisses her again, says this was totally great, he's got her number, he'll call her sometime, maybe? And then he's driving home and it's not until he's turning the shower on in his cramped little bathroom that he realizes his eyes are leaking tears he can't feel, and have been for some time.

*

Jesse learns his lesson about sticking too close to home, and starts driving the hours down to Omaha to bar-hop on the weekends. He wants girls. Any girls. All the girls. Girls he can feel up and eat out and get on top off and get off on and go the fuck home.

It's good, for a while. One Saturday night he even stumbles into a threeway with two chicks who are freaky roommates or girlfriends who want the occasional cock to share, he's not sure, and it's good, if a little overwhelming to have all those hands on him at once. But the hands are soft and small and gentle, he buries his dick in one pussy and his face in another, and it's all okay. Everything's fine.

But then there's this other Saturday night where nothing's good. 'Cause there's a long list of people that Jesse never wants to see ever again. Most of them are dead, but apparently one of them is still alive and wearing a black blazer and a white shirt and finally accepting his receding hairline without resorting to a dicky combover and standing in this fucking bar in fucking Omaha with a pretty Asian lady on his arm. Better run the fuck away from Saul.

Jesse's trying to put the moves on a chick with a perfect ass and gorgeous Bambi eyes when he looks across the bar and sees Goodman staring back at him, slack-jawed like he's seen a ghost. The chick is in mid-sentence, and Jesse stammers something about having to make a phone call, hears her mutter "Asshole," ( _coward little shit bitch crybaby rat_ ) behind him as he pushes his way through the crowd.

"Kid," he hears behind him.

"No no no no no," he's pleading to himself, to anyone who'll listen. He gets out the door and almost breaks into a run, but hears footfalls behind him.

"Pinkman, it's okay, I'm cool. We're cool."

Jesse whips around. "We're not doing this, alright? You didn't see me, I didn't see you. We got nothing to say to each other."

Saul backs off, hands raised, like Jesse's got a gun drawn again, spitting rage all over him. "I didn't mean to scare you. I just... I figured you bought the farm way back, kid, considering the circumstances. It's a surprise, that's all. Like seeing the invisible boy suddenly appear. Casper the unfriendly ghost. You've gotta understand my shock, right?"

Jesse clenches his jaw, balls his fists, nods a little.

"I'm glad you're alive," Saul says. "I'm... I'm sorry. About the cigarette thing. I didn't know what he was doing, I swear to Christ – "

Jesse waves him off. "Nah, man, we're not doing this. I gotta bounce. Go back to your lady in there."

He fumbles for his keys and Saul's still talking. "You look... good. Healthy. You staying clean?"

Jesse barks a laugh and finally gets his fucking car door open. "Yeah, you could say that."

"Take care, kid." It's muffled by metal and glass and the sound of the engine, but Jesse still hears it and it bounces around in his head as he drives back up north, a nice change from the things he usually hears in his own head, but he vows to never set foot in fucking Nebraska ever again.

He drives home, skating a mile or two just over the speed limit, and heads for the Crystal Palace, South Dakota branch. He parks, waits until he sees her. His girl. She's cut her hair a little shorter, she's a little skinnier, but there's still the bangs, still the long legs and the red lips.

She remembers him. "I'm doubling my prices for you if you wanna cry all over me again," she says.

"Nah, I'm not – I don't want to – just, can you hook me up with something? You holding?"

She crosses her arms. "Didn't you tell me not to shoot up? Wouldn't that make you a hypocrite?"

It's getting cold. He wants to be a gentleman, give her his jacket and take her out for dinner. Mostly, though, he just wants some fucking dope.

"I told you not to shoot it up all at once. Not to not shoot up at all. I've had people... I've seen people OD, y'know, it ain't pretty."

"Huh," she says.

"Yo, can you help me or not?"

She takes his hand, takes him up to her room, rummages around in a dresser drawer. "I got crystal or I got H. I know one of the other girls has weed and pills right now, maybe some coke, too, I can go wake her up if you really want."

Jesse thinks of the girl back in Kansas, the one with the lucky horseshoe tattoo, he should've stuck with her, she might have been his one true love after all. "Crystal," he sighs.

It's blue, but he can tell right away that it's food coloring. It's all cloudy and small, half mashed into powder already, looks like it's cut to hell with who knows what. Even Todd could've done better than this crap.

"Gimme two hundred and I'll fuck you as well. Just straight fucking, no weird shit this time," she says.

He gives her the money and crushes the meth under the butt of his lighter. He snorts it through a rolled up dollar bill, and for, like, half a second when it hits him, it's like coming home. But then it isn't the same. This isn't Mr. White's product, isn't even his. It's like coming home but finding that the locks have all been changed and the windows boarded up. You know there's good stuff in there, somewhere, a bed and a TV and warmth and maybe even family, but there's no way to get to it. You just have to stand outside in the cold and try to remember what it was like last time you were there.

"So, you gonna tell me your name this time?" he asks his girl as he rubs the bridge of his nose, feeling the divot of the scar there.

"Samantha," she says, and takes a hit.

"I'm Jesse," he says. "It's nice to meet you."

Samantha mutters a, "Yeah, right," and gets his pants down, tugs him till he's hard, puts a rubber on him and starts to suck him off, all quick and businesslike.

A little flame flickers somewhere deep inside him, the girl with black hair and bangs bobbing her head in his lap stirs up some memory that goes right along with the way his ears ring with a roar like far-off jet engine and his nerves crackle dimly. But it's not the same. It's never the same. You can't go home again, or something.

Saul was right the first time. Jesse Pinkman is dead.

*

He stays off the drugs. There's nothing there for him anymore. Not with the crystal, at least. He's afraid to try anything else, afraid to find either a bottomless pit he can disappear into or another door that's closed to him forever.

He goes back to the gay bars, only this time he's picky. He's waiting for a particular kind of guy. It takes a few weekends, but then he finds him: tall, sandy hair, responds with a calm smile when Jesse shouts over the music "I want you to rough me up and then let me fuck you in the ass. Really, really hard."

Jesse's stone cold sober, drives his car to this dude's place. They talk about how it's going to go. He doesn't leave anything to chance. They don't exchange names. Jesse doesn't give a shit, and this guy doesn't seem to either. The dude asks if he has a safe word. Jesse says, "Whitehorse."

He manhandles Jesse a little, pulls his clothes off, hits him, tells him to stay still. Shoves Jesse onto his knees, keeps his clothes on but pulls his dick out like he's gonna take a piss, sticks it in Jesse's mouth like it's just some blank void that's has no purpose other than a fuckhole. Holds his head steady, pulls his hair when he tries to move. Shallow thrusting like he's bored, _little rat bitch faggot won't even try to get you off how do you do it Toddy why you even bother with the little crybaby bitch rat_.

Then he's throwing Jesse on the floor, dragging him by his wrists across the carpet, rug burn all along his back and his ass, come streaked across his face, arms feeling like they're about to pop out of their sockets. Jesse kicks and screams, but it's okay, he wanted this, he's not afraid, not this time. The dude dumps Jesse in the bedroom, but then it's Jesse's turn to get the upper hand. He jumps on the dude's back, riding him like a fucking rodeo bull, kicking him in the sides, bringing him down to his knees, gets him in a headlock, and the dude's grunting and trying to pull away, and Jesse's suddenly hard as a rock. Jesse picks him up, bends him over the bed, yanks the dude's pants down and lubes him up, a negotiated concession to human decency that Jesse had to go without countless times before. 

The dude cries out when Jesse shoves his cock in, and Jesse punches him in the kidneys and growls, "Shut the fuck up, little bitch." And then that's it. He can't stop. He's pinned the dude's arms down, kicked his legs apart, leaning over him, hissing in his ear, "Yeah, who's the little bitch now, huh? You gonna cry this time? Nah, you like it don't you? Rat bitch likes a dick in it's ass. Nah, don't cry, don't hurt yourself, this is for your own fucking good, this'll make you feel good, it's nice, ain't it? Yeah, it's your reward, 'cause you like it so much you little bitch. Ninety-seven percent, yeah, rat bitch faggot you're good for one fucking thing."

The dude's moaning, he's getting off on it, the way Jesse is just hammering into him, he's probably not even hearing the shit that Jesse's saying, and Jesse isn't hearing half of it either. He smacks the dude's ass, leaves fingerprint bruises on his hips, scratch marks on his ass cheeks and down his back. Jesse's whole body is tense and tight and locked up. His jaw aches, he realises he's snarling. It feels like he comes really fast, but he might have been going at it for a half-hour or more, he doesn't know. Everything hurts from every muscle strung tight, and when he pulls out and jizzes all down the crack of the dude's ass it doesn't help, it doesn't loosen him up, doesn't relax him at all, doesn't drain anything out of him.

The guy has been rubbing off against the bedcovers, he's gotten off again, and he lays on his belly all fucked out and spent.

"That was fucking intense, man. Thanks," he says, but Jesse barely hears him as he goes back to the living room for his clothes and gets the fuck out of there, feeling like he wants to fill his mouth with gasoline and set it alight, just to get the taste of those words out of there.

*

Jesse can't stay away from those bars now. It's like if he can fuck a guy who vaguely reminds him of every one of those scumfuck assholes, can do something one bazillionth as bad as what they did to him, it'll scoop all the sick stuff out of him, make him hollow and clean, make him stop hearing what he hears and seeing what he sees whenever he doesn't want to, which is always. 

Jesse wants a guy who reminds him of Jack. Just something little. Old, skinny, slicked back hair in a ponytail, the way he holds a cigarette at the corner of his mouth. Whatever. Just something that's enough. He wants to ask if he can gag the guy, snuff out matches on his chest, maybe stand him in his bathtub and toss buckets of freezing water on him, point and laugh when his dick shrinks. 

Maybe. Maybe it'll make him feel better. And if the guy doesn't remind him of Jack, who gives a fuck. He'll find some dude who'll let him do it anyway. Whatever he can think of, he's sure there's someone out there who'll get off on it. Even if he has to pack up his shit and keep moving across the country, he'll find someone who'd love to _take it like a good little rat bitch_. Someone that ain't him.

He sits and waits, shutting down anyone who throws an interested glance his way with a clenched jaw and fuck-off eyes. 

It goes on like that for weeks. Until he's scanning the bar, checking faces, checking bodies, trying to guess who looks likely to be into what. Then he locks in on a dude who makes him go cold, his shaking hand makes waves in his JD and Coke as he sets it down on the bar.

Dude's old, maybe in his fifties, but Jesse sucks at telling shit like that. He's got a bad haircut and an even worse moustache. He looks out of place but determined to fit in, like he just woke up a few mornings ago and figured out he wanted to get some cock, left his wife at home and came to the first place he found in the Yellow Pages under "gay". He's sitting back, observing, like the bar and the men within it are predictable systems he's trying to figure out.

Jesse thinks he could do anything he wanted with this guy. He could tie him up and beat the shit out of him, put clothes pegs on his nipples and jerk him off with sandpaper. He could take him in the bathroom and fuck him in the stall, crack his skull on the tiles and leave him dying. He could get bent over in the back seat of this guy's car and be his _pathetic junkie imbecile coward bitch_. He could ask this guy to take him home, to hold him, ask him to tell Jesse that he's sorry, you've done a good job, son, it's all going to be okay, I came back for you, you're safe now. Ask him to fuck Jesse nice and slow, ask if it's okay to call him Mr. White, ask if it's okay to cry.

Dude sees him staring and gives him an awkward, tentative smile.

Jesse gets up and walks out, the ice cubes in his drink still clattering together.

*

He goes looking for Samantha. He wants to give her money, all his money, whether it's in exchange for sex or heroin or to run away with him to New Zealand, he doesn't care.

It's almost two in the morning by the time he gets to the motel, and he doesn't see her around anywhere. He asks one of the other girls still hanging around the parking lot, waiting for any stragglers who failed to find someone to go home with at last call and can't end the night without a quick BJ.

"She's gone. She OD'd. Real sad."

"Samantha's dead?" Jesse whispers, no air in his lungs.

"Nah, she ended up in the hospital and they called her parents and they came got her and took her back to wherever she's from. Bismarck, I think. Dunno."

"So she's alive?"

"Yeah, last I heard." The chick shrugs, shifts her weight to one leg, sticks her hip out. "So, you wanna fuck me instead? Am I good enough for you?"

"No – I mean, yeah, but no, thanks, I – so, Samantha might be able to get clean now, right? Now she's home with her folks?"

She snorts. "Yeah. Sure. Maybe. Y'know what they say, honey. Once a junkie, always a junkie."

"Yeah," Jesse says quietly under his breath, his cravings for everything and anything gone, the things inside him that make him keep moving suddenly seizing and stopping.

"You wanna fuck or not?"

He shakes his head, fishes fifty bucks out of his wallet and thanks her for her time.

*

Winter comes, and Jesse's had enough of trying. He quits his job, lives off the money in the bag on the shelf in the closet. He hasn't counted it, but there's probably enough to last him a couple years even if he never works again, as long as he doesn't spend it all on useless shit like stereo speakers and plasma screens and shiny pretty noisy things that give him reasons not to think for a while. 

He drinks too much. He sits out in the snow in the little courtyard of the apartment complex and chain smokes. He wonders if he should move somewhere else, but most of the time he doesn't get out of bed before mid-afternoon, so the thought of packing up his shit and figuring out where else to go is way too much to deal with.

There's a girl who moves in across the hall from him and he falls a little bit in love with her from the first minute he sees her.

He gives her a wide berth in the hallways, the elevator, the stairwell, the laundry room, figures he's the kind of person who makes a girl like that, with her small bones and smaller smile, feel unsafe. She has wide brown eyes and curly dark hair down to her shoulders. It looks soft. He wants to fuck her. He wants to hold her. He wants her to hold him and tell him he's a good person. He realises his options for human contact are limited since he barely manages to leave the fucking building anymore. He's obsessed with her. He stays away from her.

He sees her a lot. It's not on purpose. It's not like it was with Jane, where he was a fucking creeper listening at the walls and then acting all casual when he ran into her out back. It just seems that she comes and goes and similar hours as him. She comes in mid-afternoon just as he's rolling out of bed and going downstairs for his wakeup smoke. Then he's out there so long that he sees her come out for what he guesses is her getting-home-from-doing-something-productive smoke. 

From the other side of the courtyard, he watches her play with what he assumes is her kid. A little girl, maybe five or so, bundled up so tight against the weather that she can hardly bend her arms or legs. The girl—woman, really, since she's got a kid and all—and her kid kneel on the ground and play Hot Wheels, driving the little cars over the mountains of snow, sending them on death-plummets off the edge of the benches, making all the appropriate sound effects. It's the coolest fucking thing he's ever seen. He's a little in love with both of them.

He daydreams about them, about kneeling in the snow and joining in their game, about marrying the woman and the kid being their flowergirl dumping petals at their feet, about the kid growing up and being sixteen and starting to date assholes like Jesse until he chases them off. He tries to stay away from them, but the window of his bedroom overlooks the courtyard, so he stands there, tucked behind the curtain, watching. He feels like shit about it ( _pathetic worthless coward little bitch you have NOTHING_ ) but he doesn't want to get near them, get them dirty. They're the only thing he looks forward to, catching some glimpse of them most days. 

He dreams about the woman. He doesn't even have real dirty fuck dreams anymore, though, it's all stupid shit like sitting on the couch holding hands, falling asleep with her head on his chest, telling her his secrets and having her kiss the scars on his cheek, making them fade even more.

He's making himself sick.

At least Todd had known Lydia's name.

*

When she finally talks to him, he jumps like he does when he hears a car backfire on the street, when he hears his upstairs neighbors getting into a brutal shouting match.

"Hey. You live across the hall from me, right?"

Jesse almost drops his cigarette. He'd been staring down at the ground, hadn't even seen her come in to the courtyard.

"Uh... yeah. Yeah, I think so. I'm 603. Greg."

She probably wants to know who he is because she's noticed he's practically stalking her and needs to know where he is so she can tell the cops. Smart chick. He likes that.

"Hi, 603 Greg. I'm 602 Kim."

"Hey," he croaks.

He hopes that's it, hopes he doesn't have to tell her that she's signing her death certificate just by coming near him, doesn't have to tell her he's a _worthless pathetic bitch rat junkie rat coward bitch FIND HIM HIT HIM FUCK HIM KILL HIM DO IT JESSE DO IT NOW_.

He wants to ask her out on a date.

"Doesn't the cold make you wanna quit?" she asks.

His heart jumps into his throat and nestles there. He looks up at her blankly.

Kim holds up her cigarette. "Coming outside all the time. I see you out here a lot. Doesn't it make you wanna quit? Like, you know... as if it isn't bad enough you could get lung cancer, you could get frostbite, too?"

There are worse things. "You're out here," he says.

She laughs, all steaming breath and smoke. "This is nothing. I grew up in Alaska and started smoking when I was 16, and my mother would _not_ tolerate that in her house. It's like I've been in training for this my whole life."

Jesse coughs, wants to spit his heart out. He suddenly feels the cold. "Alaska? Seriously?"

"Yeah," she says. "Don't look so surprised. People do live there, you know."

"Nah, it's just... I thought about moving there, once. You're the first person I've ever met who's actually, like, from there."

"Oh, really? How come you didn't move there?"

Jesse shrugs, pulls his coat tighter. "Shit happens."

"Yeah. Sometimes it does." 

He nods, looks at the ground, hopes that's it, that's the beginning, the middle, and the end of their epic love story right there. Cigarettes and Alaska and shit happens. Story of his life. He doesn't want to put that on her, put that in her. She seems nice.

"This is gonna sound a little forward..." Kim starts, and Jesse closes his eyes and begs, _please please please_ but whether it's for forward or backward he doesn't really know. He looks up at her again, and she goes on, "Do you want to come over tonight for... dinner, or something? My daughter is spending the weekend with her father, and I get kind of... it's nice to have company, sometimes."

His eyes sting, his face cracks with a faint smile. 

_Coward_.

"I, uh, I'd love to, seriously, but I got plans already tonight. Maybe some other time, though?"

_Little bitch rat COWARD YOU HAVE NOTHING WHAT HAPPENS NEXT IS ON YOU_.

"Oh, yeah, sure. That'd be great." Her small smile gets bigger. Jesse chokes on his own heart.

"It was nice to meet you, finally," he laughs and stubs his smoke out and heads back to his apartment.

*

Jesse spends the night packing up Gregory John Miller's things and Todd and Lydia's bag of money, and before the morning comes, Jesse's gone, speeding away in Gregory John Miller's law-abiding used Ford Focus.

He doesn't know where to go.

He doesn't care.


End file.
